Top positive review

Pity poor Jack Reacher. It's like the guy can never get even ten minutes to himself to relax and enjoy life before he stumbles into some grave crisis that only someone as talented as Jack Reacher could ever hope to sort out and set right.

In this case, Reacher is riding in a train through the vast heartland of America, on his way to Chicago. He wants to get to the city before it gets too cold to enjoy it. Out in the middle of nowhere, though, the train stops in a little town called Mother's Rest. Reacher is a curious kind of guy and he wants to know how the town got its name. So he gets off the train, expecting to spend a day or two unraveling the mystery, before continuing on to the Windy City.

As he gets off the train, he's approached by a woman who's obviously expecting to meet someone from the train and who, in the dark, initially mistakes Reacher for her party. She backs off when she realizes her mistake, but Reacher assures her that no other man of his size was even riding on the train, let alone getting off of it. The woman's name is Michelle Chang, and Reacher walks her back to her motel where he takes a room for himself.

But creepy things are afoot in the tiny town and some seriously bad guys are watching Chang's every move. When Reacher accompanies her back to the motel, they automatically assume that Chang was meeting him and that the two are working together. The next day, as Reacher is walking through the town, looking for a monument or something that would explain how the town got its name, the bad guys have a spy dogging Reacher's every step and become convinced that he is assisting Chang in investigating the town's dark secret.

Chang has no clue what that secret might be. She's simply there to meet a fellow investigator who asked for her assistance without explaining the case he was on. Now he's disappeared and Reacher agrees to help Chang look for him. Before long the two are up to their necks in trouble, with the Bad Guys hot on their trail. The search takes them to Chicago, to Arizona and to California and the more they pursue the case, the murkier and the more dangerous it becomes.

Inevitably, there is a lot of action and some great fight scenes. A lesser man would have never made it out of Mother's Rest to begin with, but as every fan of this series understands, Jack Reacher is not a lesser man. It's fun watching Reacher and Chang dig into this ever-expanding conspiracy, and by the time they finally return to Mother's Rest, you know that all hell is about to break loose.

I would argue that the book drags a bit in the second half and it maybe takes a bit too long for the reader to realize the full nature--and the horror--of the problem that Reacher and Chang confront here. But it's a pretty gruesome one, and when push comes to shove, we can all be thankful that Jack Reacher is on the job. This is another very good entry in this popular series.

Top critical review

My life is pretty much like this: I spend 11 months and 28 days of every year looking forward to the new Lee Child book and then 2-3 days devouring it. He is the master of the opening paragraph. Immediate hooks. Short sentences. You don't even notice his writing style after the first page or two but it's effortless to read. And there are many things about this book which make it a strong addition to the series. I read it in two days and it definitely gave me the "Reacher fix" I wanted.

It starts in the usual way with Reacher turning up in a small town and immediately running into a woman in need of assistance (in this case Michelle Chang, a former FBI agent turned private investigator who is looking for her missing colleague), but it turns into a cross-country investigation that touches on issues that are current and very nasty.

And that is one of the issues that I had with the book: it's dark. It goes places that are unpleasant and disturbing. The majority of the book is like a regular Jack Reacher novel, but it changes tone towards the end when it becomes evident what it is that Reacher and Chang are investigating. The villains in this instance aren't just bad guys - they are evil. And I can honestly say that this is one Lee Child book I will never re-read. I didn't like putting those images in my head.

Another thing. It struck me halfway through this book that every woman that Reacher teams up with is exactly the same. Even as I write that it occurs to me that Lee Child would probably protest that it's not true because Chang is in her 40s and Chinese American, but that kind of proves my point: only the superficialities change. The banter - and yes, sexual chemistry - between Reacher and Chang is indistinguishable between what he had with Susan Turner or Elizabeth Deveraux or Theresa Lee or Susan Duffy or...you get the picture. There is nothing distinctive about Chang whatsoever.

So not the best Lee Child book - far from it - but it's hard in this genre to maintain a consistently high standard and when you compare him to his contemporaries he still does a better job of it than most.

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My life is pretty much like this: I spend 11 months and 28 days of every year looking forward to the new Lee Child book and then 2-3 days devouring it. He is the master of the opening paragraph. Immediate hooks. Short sentences. You don't even notice his writing style after the first page or two but it's effortless to read. And there are many things about this book which make it a strong addition to the series. I read it in two days and it definitely gave me the "Reacher fix" I wanted.

It starts in the usual way with Reacher turning up in a small town and immediately running into a woman in need of assistance (in this case Michelle Chang, a former FBI agent turned private investigator who is looking for her missing colleague), but it turns into a cross-country investigation that touches on issues that are current and very nasty.

And that is one of the issues that I had with the book: it's dark. It goes places that are unpleasant and disturbing. The majority of the book is like a regular Jack Reacher novel, but it changes tone towards the end when it becomes evident what it is that Reacher and Chang are investigating. The villains in this instance aren't just bad guys - they are evil. And I can honestly say that this is one Lee Child book I will never re-read. I didn't like putting those images in my head.

Another thing. It struck me halfway through this book that every woman that Reacher teams up with is exactly the same. Even as I write that it occurs to me that Lee Child would probably protest that it's not true because Chang is in her 40s and Chinese American, but that kind of proves my point: only the superficialities change. The banter - and yes, sexual chemistry - between Reacher and Chang is indistinguishable between what he had with Susan Turner or Elizabeth Deveraux or Theresa Lee or Susan Duffy or...you get the picture. There is nothing distinctive about Chang whatsoever.

So not the best Lee Child book - far from it - but it's hard in this genre to maintain a consistently high standard and when you compare him to his contemporaries he still does a better job of it than most.

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With Make Me I've reached the limit of my patience and frustration with Mr. Childs. There were a few spurts of the old Reacher here but the story is sick and drags endlessly through a tiresome search for a character. Too much unnecessary filler material that I skimmed through. On a scale of A to E I gave this one a D, the first time for a Reacher. So I will be starting from the first Reacher because he used to be great.

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I tried to finish this thing, mostly because I spent almost $15 on it. At about 60% I gave up. I was flipping through pages hoping that something was finally going to happen. Seriously, does Mr. Child do any research for his books? Does he have internet access?

1) I don't live in Oklahoma but the internet has cell phone coverage maps. It sure looks like almost every square inch of the state has some type of coverage. (Maybe someone from Oklahoma could confirm that.) Yeah, there might be some dead areas but not when driving for three hours. Which brings us to point number 2.

2) Oklahoma City is smack dab in the middle of the state. All of the wheat fields are west and northwest of OC. It is only 100 or so miles from downtown OC to the Texas border. Add another 100 and you're in Amarillo Texas. It's hard to tell exactly where this fictional town is set but even if it is up in the far northwest corner, it is only about 100 miles back down south to Amarillo. The northern border of the state is only 100 miles from OC and I-35 runs up that way, add another 100 and your in Wichita KS. Three hours at 50 mph and you should hit a good size town somewhere. And it probably has cell phone service.

3) Chicago. Our heroes determine that the bad guy has a network behind him because he has a gun. He couldn't take the gun on the airplane so someone must have supplied him with it. They incapacitate the bad guy and start using their cell phone again which they knew had been traced before. Why would you do that if you thought there was some network of bad guys? Go get a burner phone like you did earlier in the book.

4) The library. Our heroes find out their guy phoned from the library. Our heroes know they have been traced by their cell phones. Our heroes are so smart that they can't figure out that maybe the bad guys just might have the library under surveillance.

5) Chang uses an old FBI business card to fool people into thinking she is still with the FBI. No one ever asks to see, I don't know, A BADGE!!! Who on this planet doesn't know that any scam artist can print their own business cards? At home, on their personal printer.

I may have forgiven some of this nonsense if the book was any good but it was just deadly dull. I didn't care anymore. One last observation about my fellow readers. If you don't want a violent book don't read Lee Child or John Sandford. There are plenty of light mystery books out there you can select from.

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NEVER did I think I would put boring and Jack Reacher together in the same sentence but the first three-quarters of Make Me give me no choice. It is so dull I wonder if a ghost writer wrote it.

The story starts with a murder cover up and Jack Reacher stopping off at a town called Mother’s Rest, in the middle of no where. In the next 300 pages, Reacher wanders in and out of stores, trying to discover why Mother’s Rest is called Mother’s Rest, hooks up with an ex FBI agent looking for her partner, interviews a journalist and flies to several US cities, trying to discover the secret of Mother’s Rest.

In the same 300 pages, the reader is left trying to discover what the book is ABOUT. Meanwhile, there have only been three demonstrations of Reacher’s prodigious physical capacities, less then that of his always (at least previously) sharp mental abilities, at least one REALLY stupid mistake the nearly gets innocent people killed and a repetition of the drug/money robbery scenario previously seen in several other books.

Even the woman Reacher hooks up with, Michelle Chang, has less going for her, as far as Child lets us know, then Jodie or Susan (or any other previous woman) and yet (spoiler alert!) he rides off into the sunset with her!

Not until the last fifty pages of Make Me does the pace pick up and Reacher and Child turn back into the hero and writer we know and love. The ending is extraordinary as the secret of Mother’s Rest is finally revealed. I will only say I truly hope Child made all this up from scratch because even the THOUGHT that any of this could happen is heart stoppingly appalling.

If you love Jack Reacher of course you will want to read it anyway, but don’t waste your money buying it new, even discounted. Get it from the library or buy it used.

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I was giddy when I discovered the Jack Reacher series. Not my typical genre so I was thrilled to find book after book that drew me in, enhanced my brain and kept me clicking through page after page until the wee hours of the morning. I flew through the first ten books in ten days. Then the formula--obscure place, Robin Hood-like hero, beautiful women--became a bit predictable. But still I read on. No longer at break neck speed, savoring the works instead. I even went back and re-read some of the earlier installments to tease out more attributes of the "hero". So by the time I reached book 20 I was good friends with Reacher. And oh so disappointed.

I think Lee Child has run out of steam for the series. The "bad guys" in this book were deplorable, the subject unthinkable. I call them bad guys but they shouldn't even be allowed to be called human. I won't spoil anything in case you actually want to read the book. But I wouldn't recommend it to any one. In sorry I wasted my money.

Child's seems to really be stretching himself thin in this book. In the past, fight scenes have been written in a way that I could almost feel myself being there with Reacher as he takes on one, two, ten combatants. I could hear elbow meet flesh and always anticipated the we-know-it's-coming head but slam. The fight scenes in Make Me were forced and Reacher is way off his game. It just became easier to shoot some one. And while I agree that Reacher didn't kill anyone who didn't deserve to die I agree with other reviewers that at some point law enforcement should have been involved. Simply killing the bad guys was too good and too easy.

I hate to say it but I no longer look forward to the release of book 21. Jus my prediction that it will be the last Jack Reacher book. Child's is straining to come up with scenarios in this technologically driven world. It's become more difficult to keep Reacher under the radar. It's been nearly a decade since we first met up with him but I think the time has come for him to plant roots and give up the nomadic life style that had lead to all of his encounters with loathsome characters.

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I've read six of Lee Child's Jack Reacher novels and enjoyed them all. Then I bought this one. Big mistake. Nothing really happens; it seems like the first 60% of the novel is preparation for SOMETHING to happen, but I was so bored by the time I reached the 66% count on my Kindle, I couldn't take any more and just gave it up for Gore Vidal's "Lincoln." Trust me, the latter is far superior. Reacher is so absurd in so many ways. This guy wanders the world--on foot, if you can imagine--with only a toothbrush. I presume he has money stashed somewhere, because he seems able to buy cheap new clothing when his current garb begins to stink. He inevitably finds a woman within the adventure he stumbles into and they make love in a mechanical way. He stomps five or six men and shoots 20 or so. I guess that's actually something happening, but it happens in ever novel. I can't believe "Make Me" received awards as a great novel because, IMO, it sucked. But I'll probably buy another Reacher novel because I think I've read his worst effort so far ... or at least 66% of it. It can only get better from here. P.S. I used to live in Oklahoma City, and trust me, we have some of the worst train service in the country. There is ONE passenger train per day and it goes only to Fort Worth, with intermediate stops in numerous small towns on the way south. But in "Make Me" it sounds like all trains in America arrive and depart from OKC. The author was apparently too lazy to even look up this easily found information. Get with it, Childs!~

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For the life of me I can't understand why Jack Reacher cannot get out of the Great Plains and maybe that is why this book left so much to be desired. The vast emptiness of the Great Plains seem to have emptied the character of Jack Reacher. There is limited dialogue. The reader is just left with Jack ruminating about past fights and actively seeking new conflicts. In this story, he is simply a one dimensional cliche of his former self. There is nothing new with this story. His female companion is just like the rest of the women in the Reacher series; capable individuals but still needing a little help from Reacher. Much of the limited dialogue in this novel centers around Reacher trying to figure out why this new evil town is called Mother's Rest and frankly who cares. Mr Child needs to find somewhere else for Jack to go...enough of evil, lonely farm towns that may or may not exist in the Twilight Zone.

He needs to give this character purpose and a reason for existing. Wandering aimlessly around the country is no longer believable. Jack Reacher has simply become the literary version of the Lone Ranger with the accompanying women serving as his side kick.

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It took months for me to get into this book. I tried many times. Kept putting it down. Normally a Lee Child book grabs me by the bootstraps and never lets go. This time was different. It's because this book was different. It started dark. It ended darker. I can't even give this book to someone I like in order to share it because the darkness at the end bothered me. Made me ill. The dark web has no place in this house. I believe the dark web exists. But I don't have to invite it into my home. Note for Jack Reacher. When you kick ass you do so well intended. Keep it up. When you do darkness of the kind you visited in Make Me, and the kind of darkness you made us venture into in the book Make Me; don't. I don't have the stomach for it. Because even tho this was fiction, it would not surprise me in the least that in some parts of this Earth, it is fact. I think I will burn this book. I've never done that before. But, as I've heard it said, "There's a first time for everything.".

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This book, like its precedent, is not in the same mode as all the other books by Lee Child. The intense suspense and action is missing.While this is a good story, it didn't keep me up all night to finish it in one sitting, as other Jack Reacher novels have always done.I hope Lee Child is not burning out with his Reacher character, for it would be a shame to not have these intense thrillers.In this book, as the last one, Reacher is more laid back - not really his "kick ass" self. While he does major damages to his enemies, it comes along too late in the book. The book is long on description, short on action. I hope the next one is in the same mode of previously written books.

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It seems to me that Lee Child needs to find other employment. I own all of the Reacher novels and think Child's writing has become labored. His plotting seems darker and less joyous and more grim than in previous editions. He seems unable to formulate exciting and believable scenarios to challenge Reacher's unique abilities. With the whole world to choose from, Child surely could find a new adventure in each novel without resorting to sordid and disgusting situations as presented in the final pages of "Make Me". I fully realize that evil exists and needs to be stamped out, but I read for pleasure and entertainment, not to be revolted by the events portrayed in "Make Me". I am a great fan of Robert B. Parker's writing and admire his unmatched ability to create vivid and exciting characters and situations. If only Child could better exploit the Reacher character in inventive real-life and challenging events for Reacher to resolve.